


the hit.

by sniikt



Series: something like home. [1]
Category: John Wick (Movies), The Last of Us
Genre: Enemies to Lovers, John Wick AU, M/M, as in joel is an assassin and the outbreak didn’t happen, what are verb tenses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-06-26 06:20:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19762345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sniikt/pseuds/sniikt
Summary: joel takes a contract. john takes a contract. joel tries to kill john. john tries to kill joel. it’s only natural that they fall in love, right?





	1. chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> yeah i want joel and john to get married, what about it

The air feels heavier somehow when Joel takes jobs.

Its tight—pulled taught around him, fraught with an electric tension that makes him feel on edge. A strange feeling of exhaustion and adrenaline all at once. Wrongness.

New York just makes it worse.

He hasn’t been here long—a few weeks, but he already hates it. He doesn’t like cities—never has. He only stayed in Boston because of Tess and after she was gone—well. Just a few loose ends to clean up. Then he was gone.

Adrian Morozov was one such loose end. The ratty little excuse for a man had been running a small smuggling ring in New York for a few years, and it would seem that Joel wasn’t the only person he had pissed off recently.

5 million was no small contract.

Joel had ran into a few other hitmen on his trek through the underworld of New York while tracking down Morozov. All had been easily dissuaded from continuing to pursue the contract.

All except one.

Joel shifted his weight and adjusted the sight on his rifle, moving from watching Morozov in the window of his penthouse to the dark suited man on the ground down below.

His hair hid his face, but the 9mm in his hands was visible and made his intention clear. He moved one hand from his gun to crack the alley door of the building and raised the gun to point inside. Evidently satisfied that the doorway was clear he slipped inside.

The bastard was going to take his target. Moving the sight back up to Morozov’s floor, he was met with now darkened windows.

Apparently they had figured out someone was after them.

Shoving the rifle to the side, Joel snatched his 9mm and an AK from his duffel bag and made sure they were both loaded and that he was well stocked with ammo. Then he shoved himself over the edge of the building onto the fire escape.

* * *

He could hear gunshots and muffled shouts before he even opened the door. Hoping the chaos inside would make up for his own lack of stealth, he threw the door open.

Bodies scattered the floor. Blood splattered across walls and boxes of cargo.

The shooting upstairs stops.

Hoping against hope that he hadn’t lost his chance, Joel turned a corner and raced up a set of stairs just to be thrown to the floor once he reached the top.

Gun pressed to his temple. Cold. Unforgiving.

His fingers scrambled against the metal grating of the floor, searching vainly for his AK.

The gun against his head clicks.

In desperation, Joel throws a blind punch. It’s caught easily—but it throws his attacker off guard enough for Joel to unseat him and grab the 9mm from his waistband.

They’re face to face, guns pulled, and for the first time, Joel gets a good look at his competition.

His hair’s slicked back, a few strands hanging around his face. He stands an inch taller than Joel, shoulders broad and squared for a fight. Red light illuminates his face, dancing off the streak of blood on his cheek. His eyes are cold. Flinty. But Joel’s been around long enough to spot the flicker of emotion that crosses his face for a single moment.

A gun fires.

Joel moves, but it’s a moment too late. Stupid. Distracted. The bullet hits him in the shoulder—a lucky hit for how dumb he was. It misses his collar bone and it’s far enough away from any major organs that he’ll survive.

Still hurts like a bitch though.

He’s not sure when the ringing in his ears and white in his vision disappears, but when it does, he stays on the ground for a moment, watching blood drip from his shoulder onto a small pool on the floor and panting for breath.

He listens for footsteps.

There are none.

Slowly he pushes himself up to sitting postition. There’s no sign of his shooter.

He shouldn’t be alive.

That man wasn’t stupid. He was trained. Competent.

He knew a hit like that wouldn’t kill him, but he had left him anyway.

Somehow, he gets to his feet and collects his equipment. Somehow, he limps back to the Continental.

Charon is waiting for him—eyeing him in a subtly amused way that makes Joel want to punch him in the face.

Instead he just sighs, leans on the counter—making sure he gets just enough blood on it that it’s inconvenient.

“Will you be requiring the doctor’s services?” Charon questions, and Joel again gets the urge to punch him.

“Yes,” he bites out.

Charon nods. “Of course. And Mr. Miller? I believe Mr. Wick is waiting for you at the bar.”

Joel wrinkles his nose. He doesn’t particularly like being caught off guard, and not recognizing the name of the man supposedly waiting for him pisses him off. “Who the fuck is Mr. Wick?”

Charon smiles. “Trust me, Mr. Miller—you’ll want to know.”


	2. chapter two

Mr. Wick, as it turns out, is the bastard who fucking shot him.

Joel meets his eyes from across the room—Wick looking infuriatingly smug and only a little worse for wear while Joel has a hole in his shoulder.

Being declared excommunicado would be worth it, just to punch that smug look off his face.  


If Joel was a smart man, he would leave. Turn around, sulk back to his room, and drink himself to sleep.

But Joel wasn’t a smart man, and he definitely wasn’t the kind of man to turn down a challenge.

And Wick’s steady gaze over the top of his glass of scotch was definitely a challenge.

Joel sighs. Once again weighs the risks of just shooting Wick. And then joins him at the bar. 

Wick slides him the second glass of scotch and eyes him. Waits for Joel to speak first.

Joel’s not falling for it.

If Wick wants to sit in silence while Joel gets a free drink, that’s fine by him. A free drink is the absolute _least_ Wick owes him.

Wick seems to understand what Joel’s doing and he smiles, slightly.

Maybe, Joel thinks, in a different life, in a different circumstance, he may have asked Wick to drinks, maybe dinner. He’s handsome. Intriguing.

But it isn’t a different life, and Joel doesn’t _do_ attatchments anymore. 

And he certainly doesn’t do attachments with the man who shot him.

“Drop the contract.” Wick’s voice startles Joel—he really had half expected to finish his drink in silence.

“No.” That’s all there is to it. Joel can’t drop it. Won’t drop it. Not after what they did in Boston. He owes it to Tess. In fact, _he_ is owed, dammit. Owed the satisfaction of revenge. Owed a death.

“Should I shoot you again?” John is smiling. Joel scoffs, taken aback by the other man’s sudden sense of humor.

“Won’t happen again,” Joel says bluntly, and he’s telling the truth. Pausing to examine Wick had been a mistake, and Joel didn’t make the same mistake twice.

It’s Wick’s turn to chuckle, quietly, into his drink. It’s obvious that he doesn’t believe him. Wick drains the glass and sets it down. The clink is final, somehow. As if he’s making it clear that this is the last chance for peace.

“You should really reconsider,” Wick says, rising from his seat. He pauses, soft smile on his face.

Joel feels an ugly pit of frustration bloom in his stomach. Who does this guy think he is, anyway? Shooting him and then meeting him at the bar like they’re friends? Demanding that he give up his target? 

“Thought I already said no,” Joel snaps, eyes narrowing, hand clenching around his glass. 

Wick takes his anger in stride, which is that much more infuriating. He nods slightly toward Joel, and the look in his eyes frustrates him even more. He looks remorseful. Pitying. Joel doesn’t want this man’s pity. 

“Good night Mr. Miller.”

* * *

Joel doesn’t see Wick until two days later. He’s spent hours piecing together what little is left of Morozov’s trail after Wick’s little shooting spree that left them even farther from their target than they started.

He doesn’t find Morozov, but he does find Morozov’s right hand—a man named Hector Spears who is bound to know where his boss is lying low.

Spears is in a small shopping warehouse along the ocean, preparing a shipment to go out.

This time Joel isn’t hesitating.

It’s easy to slip through the back door—the inside is loud, men shouting back and forth to each other about what cargo needs to go where, the sounds of metal crates being pushed against concrete floors, the sound of a small lift being moved back and forth. 

Crouching behind a stack of crates, Joel can see Spears discussing something with a few men in the office on the other side of the warehouse. There’s no way Joel can shoot him from here, but the good news is that Spears seems relaxed—leaning against the desk, laughing with the men around him occasionally. The man that appears to be Spears’s bodyguard doesn’t seem to be very alert either—lounging in an arm chair near the desk.

Joel makes his way to the other end of the warehouse slowly, staying crouched behind boxes and hiding in shadows as much as possible. He’s right outside Spears’s office when it happens.

Shouting. Then gunshots. 

The men in the office race out, weapons pulled. 

Spears and his bodyguard stay inside.

Joel glances across the warehouse floor to the shooting. He can’t see much from his position, but he can see a man in a suit taking out everyone in sight.

He can only imagine that it’s Wick.

Deciding to forego stealth and just get the job done, Joel launches himself over the crates he’s hiding behind, and bursts through the office door, startling Spears’s guard. He lands a solid punch, knocking the man down, pulls his gun, aims—

The glass next to him shatters. Startled, Joel risks a glance in the direction of the shot, just to find Wick looking back, gun raised.

Joel dodges the second shot, but not the solid shove from the guard that knocks him through the remains of the office window and into some wooden pallets on the floor.

Wick is on him quickly—within seconds, but Joel’s smarter this time. Forcing already aching muscles to roll to the side, trying to ignore the burn of slices from the glass in his back. 

Wick doesn’t pursue him any farther—seemingly focused on Spears and his goon. 

Joel’s _not_ going to lose his hit again.

He snatches a loose metal bar from the ground next to him and forces himself onto his feet. Wick is preoccupied—listening to Spears babble in Russian about something.

Joel doesn’t speak Russian.

Wick is distracted enough that Joel gets in a solid hit with the bar—knocking the man to the side. He picks up his gun and puts a bullet through the guard’s head.

Spears jumps, stumbling backward into the wall. Joel keeps the gun on him as he yells at him in Russian.

Joel cocks the gun.

“Where’s Morozov?” Spears opens his mouth to speak but Joel cuts him off. “In English.”

Spears heasitates for a moment, and Joel thinks he’s going to have to do more threatening, but the man finally speaks. “A safe house on the east side! That’s all I know, I swear! Now just leave—you’re not after me!”

A different Joel—a younger Joel, might have let him go.

Now he just pulls the trigger.

And gets tackled by Wick.

This is getting really _fucking_ annoying.

Wick straddles him, and reaches for Joel’s hand, where he’s still blindly grasping his gun. Joel slams a punch into Wick’s ribs with his free hand, and tries to pull the gun up to shoot with his other hand.

Wick presses his palm into the bullet wound in Joel’s shoulder.

Pain shoots up his arm, white hot and angry, forcing him to lose his grip on his gun and put all his focus into not curling in on his shoulder. 

Well—a dick move deserves a dick move. 

With his uninjured hand, Joel finds a piece of shattered glass and stabs it into Wick’s leg, just above the knee.

Wick makes a pained noise, and loses his grip on Joel, and Joel throws him off and to the side.

He’s breathing hard, panting, trying to resist the urge to curl in on his reinjured shoulder which hurts like a bitch. He can hear Wick breathing hard next to him, feel him trying to rise, the wet slick sound of glass being extracted from flesh.

Joel feels a little bad about that—it _was_ a dick move.

Logically, he knows he should move. Get to his feet, finish Wick off, and try and get back to the Continental—but he just can’t make himself do it.

Fuck, he’s tired.

Wick sighs, deep and slightly pained. Joel shifts, tries to ease the burn in his shoulder before clumsily pushing himself up.

He meets Wick’s eyes. 

Wick laughs—actually laughs, and then pushes himself to his feet, groaning as blood leaks from the wound in his leg. He offers a hand to Joel. “What do you think about dinner, Mr. Miller?”


	3. chapter three

Joel’s convinced he’s losing his mind. 

Any sane person would not be sitting across from the person that shot them less than 48 hours ago, in a shitty diner, eating pancakes at 2am.

Joel examines Wick. They’ve barely said two words to each other on the slow walk here, and they certainly haven’t worked out any terms of peace. However, Wick looks relaxed, unbothered—he looks tired and pained—but at peace with the situation. 

They’re not at the Continental. Either one of them could shoot the other without warning.

But they don’t.

Joel stabs his pancake and then eyes Wick, hoping for a reaction. 

He gets none.

Wick just picks at his eggs a bit before taking a bite and then evenly meeting Joel’s gaze.

“What the fuck are you hoping to accomplish here, Wick? ‘m sure as hell not giving up my hit so—“

“John.”

“What?” It’s the first word Wick has said to him since inviting him to dinner and it takes Joel completely off guard.

“You can call me John.” John is looking at him coolly, small smile on his face, as if he’s trying to make some sort of peace by offering up his name.

Joel flicks his eyes back down to his plate and stabs his pancakes as if they’ve offended him. A silence settles over the table.

It’s not a pleasant silence—uneasy. Awkward.

“Joel.” He flicks his eyes back up to John, just to see that his smile has grown slightly—seemingly pleased that Joel has accepted his peace offering.

“Nice to meet you, Joel Miller.” John says, taking another bite of his eggs. 

Joel makes a vague noise of assent.

They settle back into silence, but it’s easier this time.

The waitress comes by and refills their drinks. John pushes a gold coin toward her, which she takes with a nod and a smile before slipping it into her front apron pocket.

“I think we should split the contract,” John says bluntly, pushing his empty plate away from him slightly. 

Joel eyes him. “Why?”

John chuckles. “Tell me you’re not tired of this fucking shit.” John gestures vaguely, but Joel gets his meaning.

And he is. He _is_ tired. Tess is gone. He’s alone in a city he doesn’t like, living out of a suitcase in a hotel room. 

Maybe he could use a friend.

But that sure as hell doesn’t mean he’s going soft.

“Sixty-Forty.” Joel says, lifting his eyes to meet John’s. John looks him over. Analyzes him.

Smiles.

“Sure.” John offers his hand—still smiling.

Joel takes it, trying to ignore the strange feeling in the pit of his stomach.

* * *

John pays for dinner. Tips the waitress in both cash and another gold coin. John offers to pay for a taxi. Joel considers declining, but something like hope flits over John’s face, and Joel’s too tired to decline.

So they end up in the back seat of a taxi together, gazing out the window, a comfortable silence between them. 

“Why Morozov?” Asks John finally, breaking the silence and glancing over to Joel.

“What?” Joel questions, unsure of what John’s asking, exactly.

“You’re from Boston, right? Why come to New York just to kill Morozov?”

Joel shifts in his seat, a weird mixture of anxiety and anger twisting a knife in his chest. “‘m not from Boston.” 

It’s avoiding the question, but John doesn’t seem to mind. “Where are you from then?”

Joel plays with his watch, running his thumb over the worn leather of the strap and the cracked glass. “Texas. Austin.” He glances out the window, still rubbing his watch, trying to ease the worry bubbling up in his veins. “Haven’t been there in a while, though.”

He can sense John’s eyes on him, but he doesn’t look back at him. John sighs, but doesn’t press anymore. He seems to understand Joel’s agitation, and knows that he should leave it alone.

Joel’s grateful for that, at least.

They arrive at the Continental in silence. 

Charon’s knowing look grates on Joel’s nerves.

“I assume you’ll both be needing the Doctor’s services tonight?” 

Joel nods, but John is distracted by two dogs rounding the corner of the concierge’s desk.

One—a young beagle puppy jumps on him, eagerly, while a slightly older pitbull sniffs at his pants leg and whines. 

John bends down, grimace on his face as he strains his injured leg. He ruffles the pitbull’s ears first with a soft “good dog” and then gently pushes away the beagle who has taken to licking his face with a murmured “how’s my girl?”. 

Joel feels his heart twist, and looks away, suddenly feeling as if he’s interrupted a personal moment.

Charon is smiling. “They’ve been eagerly awaiting your return, Mr. Wick.”

John rises, and Joel pretends not to hear his hiss of pain as he does. 

“Thank you,” John says, and it’s with that earnest tone he uses on Joel—the one that makes him seem so genuine that it takes Joel off guard. 

Joel’s heart twists again, making him feel jittery and pained and so incredibly tired all at once. 

He turns to leave, but his wrist is caught by John. He turns on him—ready for a fight, but John’s eyes are gentle, his grip soft. Friendly.

“Meet here? At 10? We can go after Morozov together.”

Oh. Right.

His target.

Their target.

“Yeah,” Joel says, hating himself for how choked and strained his voice sounds.

John releases his hand. Gives him a smile.

Joel hates himself for spending the rest of the day imagining that smile and John’s hand against his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes they did just go on their first date joel just doesn’t know it yet


	4. chapter four.

Morozov’s right where Spears said he would be. 

“Spears might be a rat bastard, but he’s not a liar,” Joel comments. 

John snorts softly, an amused look passing over his face briefly. It’s a weird contrast to his all black suit and slicked back hair.

Joel ignores the flip it makes his stomach do.

“It’s a skeleton crew,” John says. “Either he’s cocky, or he’s running out of hired protection.”

Joel hums his agreement and scans the ground around the building. “Looks like there’s two doors. No other ground level entrances.”

“No other ground level exits either,” John says. “Meaning we can split up, go through both doors, and pin him in the middle of the building.”

Joel slings his M4 over his shoulder and double checks that his 9mm is sitting in his waistband against his back.

“What are we waiting for?”

* * *

There are two guards at Joel’s door. He slips a switchblade out of his pocket and sinks it into the side of one’s neck, and pulls his gun on the other before he can react.

“Open the door,” he tells him.

The man, wisely, fumbles for his keycard and inserts it in lock.

Joel cuts his throat.

The door opens into a hallway—long, with a few doors along the way, before ending in another door. He can hear a few guards milling around in an open room near the end of the hallway. They’re complaining—about Mosorov, about late nights, about the rainy weather lately.

Joel slides around a corner, into one of the empty rooms, snatches a half full beer bottle off the desk inside, and then throws it into the hallway.

It shatters.

The guards go silent.

“Go check that out, will ya, Stevie?” says someone, finally. 

“I’m not fuckin’ goin’ out there,” says someone—probably Stevie. “What if it’s the Baba Yaga, man? Markowitz said he’s the guy who took down Spears and I’m—“

“Oh, shut the hell up and just go look, will ya?” says someone else.

There’s a moments silence.

And then footsteps.

Joel waits until they get close and stop. 

“There’s nothin’ out here man!” Stevie shouts back. “Just some beer bottle broken all over the place. Outside duty must be gettin’ rowdy or some shit.” 

Stevie bends down. Pushes a few pieces of glass around.

Joel grabs him, arm tight around his neck, body flush against his. He gasps for breath, trying to shout out some word of warning to his friends. Joel forces him into the room with the other men. Before they can react, they’ve all got bullets in their heads, and Joel snaps the neck of the man he’s holding.

He snatches a keycard off of one of them and opens the door at the end of the hall.

It’s chaos. 

John has already made his way to the main room. He’s got a man with a knife in his shoulder pinned against the wall, and then he puts a bullet in his head. There are several men around Mosorov, all shouting, some in English, some in Russian. A man with a bat lunges for Joel but Joel puts a bullet in his head before he can get a hit in.

Joel’s starting to get the feeling that John isn’t one for stealth. 

John whirls on the next man who tries to attack him, and Joel sees him pull the trigger of his gun a few times before realizing it’s empty, and just throwing it at the thug’s head.

Seriously—how is John not _dead_ already?

Distracted by his empty gun, John doesn’t see the man with a knife behind him. Joel does, and shoots. The man crumples as John turns, looking at the corpse and then Joel.

He nods at Joel, lips quirked slightly.

Joel turns on the cluster of guards around Mosorov and takes out a few of them before replacing his clip. John takes out the rest with a gun he must have scavenged from one of the bodies. 

“How much?” Mosorov says—desperate, frantic. He pulls a wad of cash out of his back pocket. “I’ll triple the contract if you want, I have more than enough—“

John looks at Joel.

It’s all the permission Joel needs.

There’s a single shot.

And then silence.

* * *

Joel doesn’t expect to see John again.

He sleeps—better than he has since Tess died—and then gathers his things into his backpack and his guns into their case, and then checks out of the Continental.

John is waiting for him in the lobby—sitting on the couch in a leather jacket and jeans, with his pitbull at his feet and his beagle on the couch next to him. He smiles when he sees Joel, and rises.

“It was a pleasure to work with you,” says John, and he offers his hand to Joel.

“You too,” returns Joel, shaking his hand and trying to ignore the fact that he genuinely means it.

“Going back to Austin?” John asks, tugging at his jacket sleeve a little and then folding his arms. 

Truthfully, Joel doesn’t know where he’s going, so he lies. “Yeah, I guess. Maybe for a while.”

“I’ll see you around?” John sounds hopeful.

Joel leaves.

And he wanders.

He spends the next few months bouncing from place to place, never lasting anywhere more than a couple weeks. He _does_ try to go back to Austin, once. Spends a few weeks back in Boston. Takes a job that sends him to Italy for a while. 

He’s in Los Angeles when he gets a call from John.

He tries to ignore how pleased John sounds when he answers the phone.

He tries to ignore how his own stomach flips at the sound of John’s voice.

John tells him that someone is running Morozov’s smuggling ring again. That he wants Joel to help him dismantle it for good.

Joel must be too silent for a moment too long because John reassures him that he’s only calling because it was a shared hit. That they have a responsibility to do it together. That it’s only right.

Joel goes back to New York.

The next few weeks are spent with John. Working with John. Talking with John. Dinners with John.

They take down everyone Morozov ever had business connections with.

John tells Joel that there’s a place for him in New York.

Joel leaves anyway.

Goes back to wandering.

A month later John calls him for help with a hit on a mob leader. 

Tells him they’re a good team.

Joel tells himself he only helps because the money is good.

That’s all it is for a long time. A month or so of wandering before John calls and he heads back to New York.

It’s after the sixth or seventh job (Joel lost count about four jobs ago) that things change. 

It’s a nine million dollar contract on some asshole hitman that’s pissed off just a few too many people.

John gives Joel his usual excuses for why they should work together.

Joel pretends that there’s a reason for him to want to do another job with John.

After it’s all said and done, John takes Joel to dinner. It’s a nicer restaurant than usual—a somewhat casual Italian restaurant. They talk about nothing in particular, and the conversation flows easily. He thinks he knows almost everything about John by this point—that he’s from Belarus, but spent most of his time as an orphan in Mexico. That he trained under the Director. That he had a wife named Helen who had died of cancer almost five years ago. That his favorite color is blue, and he knows almost every Shakespeare play by heart and that he doesn’t like pickles on his burgers.

For all his sharing, John rarely pushes for the same information from Joel—just offering up himself without ever expecting Joel to do the same. But Joel does offer a little—that he was married once, a long time ago, that he lived in Austin pretty much his whole life, but that he had spent most of his summers near Dallas and had always felt more at home there. That he played guitar. That he had a kid brother he hadn’t talked to in years. That he’d had a daughter, once. That he likes old country music and chocolate milkshakes and breakfast food.

They talk until early in the morning, picking at their food slowly, until closing time comes, and they’re the only ones in the restaurant.

John pays, and they wander through the front door, out onto the street. They walk back to the Continental slowly, quietly, as if holding on to their last moments before Joel leaves. Moves on. Runs.

When they arrive at the Continental, Joel reaches for his keys.

John reaches for him.

Then stops.

John’s hand is so close to Joel’s that he can practically feel it, even though they’re not touching at all. 

He wants to take John’s hand in his.

He doesn’t.

“Joel,” John says—and it’s so choked, uneven, so unlike John. “I—“ 

He heasitates. Looks like he might pull away.

Joel’s never wanted to kiss someone so badly. Never felt his heart do so many flips within a second, never felt his entire body thrum was with anticipation so right but so completely _wrong_ because this is John, he’s just a colleague and _maybe_ a friend and Joel can’t ruin that, can’t care for him just to lose him, can’t risk kissing him when John night not even like him—

And then John’s hand takes Joel’s, and his other hand is on Joel’s neck, thumb on his cheek, lips on his lips.

_Oh._

A tension Joel didn’t even know he was holding melts out of him. John is warm, and his hands are soft—too soft, and he tastes warm, like spices Joel can’t quite name.

John pulls away too soon, far too soon, and Joel sits, stunned, and trying to savor the warmth that seems to have completely enveloped him the moment John’s lips touched his.

He must heasitate for a moment too long, because John pulls away, and Joel feels like it physically hurts to not be touching him.

“I’m sorry, fuck, listen—“ John’s backing up, and apologizing, and fuck, Joel just wants to kiss him.

So he does.

John tenses for a moment before relaxing into Joel, and wow, kissing him is just so _good._

When the kiss ends, John’s hand is still on Joel’s. Joel’s smiling so hard it hurts, and John’s got his soft, slightly crooked smile that Joel’s completely in love with.

“I think you should stay in New York,” says John softly, holding Joel’s hand tighter, like he’s afraid he might slip away.

“I think so,” says Joel, and he kisses John again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that’s it!! stay tuned for part 2, where they adopt ellie, and part 3, adventures of the wick-miller family


End file.
